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Ten global urban narratives that shaped 2015

For mayors, city leaders and urban activists around the globe, 2015 was an important and busy year.

For mayors, city leaders and urban activists around the globe, 2015 was an important and busy year. A whirlwind of international meetings set the stage for next year’s Habitat III conference, the UN’s once-every-20-years summit on the future of cities. Meanwhile, cities continued to operate as prime global laboratories for social, economic and technological innovation.

A seat at the table for cities

Citiscope is the only news outlet keeping a constant eye on the Habitat III process, including the procedural deliberations in which the rules of next year’s conference in Quito are being decided. That process took an unexpectedly dramatic turn in April. That’s when nation-states failed to agree on rules that would allow local governments and other interested parties to formally participate at Habitat III as they had at Habitat II in 1996. As our editor-in-chief, Neal Peirce, wrote in the Guardian, this essentially meant that cities would have no seat at the table — at a UN conference on cities. After eight months of wrangling, rules allowing for sub-national governments and civil society to participate were finalized in December. The past year also saw agreement among all UN member states on a landmark new development framework, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), that includes a first-ever goal on cities, the “urban SDG.” See all of our reporting on the global role for cities here.

Welcoming immigrants

While many national leaders in Europe struggled to respond to a growing migrant crisis, local leaders took the lead on helping refugees to acclimate and build trust with local populations. In Italy, we looked at the aging town of Satriano, where the mayor hopes newcomers can reverse years of population decline and put vacant housing to use. In Amsterdam, we found a pop-up “embassy” whose mission is to foster dialogue and understanding between locals and refugees. And we profiled Ahmed Aboutaleb, the Muslim mayor of Rotterdam, who in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris sought to strike a nuanced discussion about integration — both within Rotterdam’s sizeable Muslim community and across Europe.